In this article:
Introduction
You can now create animated visual components (commonly known as GIFs) in the Shaman Visual builder! GIFs are a great way of engaging your audience by maximizing the potential of your visual content.
Before we get started:
We highly recommend that you keep GIFs as light in size as possible, as heavy visual files will cause difficulties for approved email content. The more scenes and animations you add to a visual file, the heavier/ larger the file will be.
If you have any doubts about creating a new visual component in Shaman, you can take a look at this article.
How to create an Animated visual in Shaman
Once you have created a new visual component, set the obligatory information such as brand or name, and clicked the “Design” tab and selected the “Type” of visual component you are creating, you will see the “Animated” field appear beneath “Subtype”.
Good to know!
Currently Shaman supports a maximum file size of 480k pixels (800*600).
Once you have selected a “Subtype”, you can simply click the “Animated” checkbox and then click “Create canvas”
You will then be redirected to the visual builder canvas. Once you have added some visual content to the canvas, you will see the following options on the right hand side:
Scenes: If you wish to add more than one visual to the Animated GIF, you can add different “scenes” which hold the different images
Locking: Here you can configure “locking” to prevent parts of the visual component from being edited.
Audio: Please do not add any audio files to visual components as they are not currently supported in Shaman. Any audio files added to Animated visuals will be removed when the visual elements are added to the email builder.
Animation: Select an animation effect for each scene in your visual component
Across the bottom of the email canvas you will see some additional options for the animation element of the GIF:
Play scene: Click play to view the animations within the current scene you are viewing
Play all: Click play to preview the animations across all scenes created
Plus icon: Shortcut to create a new scene
Copy icon: Shortcut to duplicate a scene
Bin icon: Shortcut to delete a scene
Navigation arrows: Shortcut to navigate between scenes
Now that you are familiar with the GIF canvas, we will take a look at each of the following menus in more detail:
Scenes
Locking
Animation
Scenes
As mentioned previously, you can add different “scenes” to an animated file which hold different images within the GIF. At any stage in the scene creation process you can add other text, images or shapes and add animation effects as desired (see the Animation section here).
To add a new scene, simply click the “Add” button in the menu on the right hand side.
To increase or decrease the duration of a scene, use the arrows next to the timings under the scene preview thumbnail in the menu on the right hand side.
When you click the three dots under the scene preview, you will see the following additional options:
Add Scene name: You can add a name to your scene to help keep track of the different scenes within your animated GIF.
Clone: Click here to duplicate the scene
Split into scene slides: You can split a scene into further “child” scenes, allowing you to add animation effects between the same visual (applied to different scenes).
Delete: Click here to delete a scene.
Convert to layout: Click here to convert the scene to a layout.
Good to know!
Layouts work in a similar way to a design template in that you can create a layout, and then create new scenes using this layout.
Locking
The “locking” tool (when used in a design template) ensures that obligatory visual (eg. a brand logo) or written information (eg. legal disclaimers, dosing information, etc) which should not be updated or edited is out of bounds for anyone but the creator of the template.
What elements can I lock in Shaman?
Text
Images (Media)
Shapes
Background
Audio
As mentioned previously in this article: Please do not add any audio files to visual components as they are not currently supported in Shaman. Any audio files added to Animated visuals will be removed when the visual elements are added to the email builder.
Animation
Using the animation tab, a variety of animations can be applied to the “intro” or “outro” of a selected scene, or all scenes.
“Intro” refers to the animation that can be applied to the beginning or arrival of the content element to the scene, whereas the “outro” refers to the animation that can be applied to the ending or exit of the content element from a scene.
The options available are:
None: Select this option to not apply any animation to your visual element.
Fade
Pan
Rise
Pop
Unite
Tumble
Scale
Trample
Simply click an option to select it. Once you have selected an animation option, you will see two further options:
Delay: The element(s) will not be visible until this delay has elapsed, at which point the animation will play
Duration: This refers to how long the animation will take to complete.
Good to know!
If the delay and duration together exceed the total duration of the scene, a warning message will appear advising you to adjust either delay, duration of animation or duration of the scene.
You see in the menu on the right hand side a button to “Apply to all elements”. This will apply the chosen animation to all content elements within the scene (if you have more than one content element on the canvas).
Once you are happy with the Animated visual created, the next step is to export or publish the animated visual using the “Export” page.
Export visual component as a PDF (for MLR)
From the “MLR” tab you can export a PDF document to arrive in your email inbox, or use the “Download” option to download the PDF directly to your computer.
Export visual component to Shaman visual library, or as a GIF file to your computer
From the design canvas, click the “Export” tab to be directed to the list of Export options in Shaman.
The first section we should review contains the “Animated gif details”, where we need to set:
Frames per second: Here you can set the animation smoothness and file size. The higher the frames per second, the higher the animation smoothness (but also higher the file size). In general, we suggest 5 FPS or lower to keep file size manageable, especially for banners with limits. We recommend you to use higher FPS only if you are using animation effects.
Quality: The quality is a balance between the quality of the visual and the file size. Medium is usually sufficient quality to keep the file size within size limits, whilst maintaining a good standard of image quality. You can adjust the quality based on the animation detail.
Loop: Determines whether the animation repeats. When enabled, the animation will continuously loop. When disabled, it will play once and stop at the final frame.
Next you can decide whether you wish to share the Animated Visual to your internal Hub (if relevant!) Check out this article for more information.
To export your Animated visual to the Shaman library, you can click the “Export” button, or alternatively click “Send to Email” or “Download” to receive the GIF file to your inbox, or to your computer.